Month: March 2016

Moran ‘frustrated’ with lack of progress on immigration, cites KCK quadruple homicide case

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saWPcpvwFcA[/embedyt]

U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., spoke on the U.S. Senate floor Monday about the nation’s broken immigration policies, sanctuary cities, and the recent consequences of them – four murders in Kansas and one in Missouri.

“Madam President, I wish to address the Senate as to a terrible tragedy that has occurred in our state. I start with the premise that our immigration system is terribly, terribly broken, and the consequences of flawed immigration policies exhibit themselves across our society. It’s hard to understand why nothing has been done to address certain obviously dangerous vulnerabilities, specific problems that have put American lives at risk.

“Sanctuary city policies and indifference about the prosecution of illegal immigrants arrested for dangerous crimes and the tolerance of bureaucratic red tape by administration all contribute to a dangerous degrading of the criminal justice system. The failure to address illegal immigration at all levels of government has been accounted for in lost lives.

“Sometimes a government failure is just annoying; sometimes it’s deadly. Decades of broken immigration policy contributed to the situation that led to the murder of four people in Kansas and another in Missouri. The victims are Michael Capps, 41 years old; Jake Waters, 36 years old; Clint Harter, 27 years old; Austin Harter, 29; all of Kansas City, Kansas [all died in Kansas City, Kan., three were from Kansas City, Kan., and Waters was from Paola, Kan.]; and Randy Nordman, 49 years old of new Florence, Missouri.

“The man suspected of taking these lives is an illegal immigrant, a man who has unlawfully entered the United States three times. He has been arrested over and over. He has repeatedly demonstrated that he is a serious threat, yet despite these red flags, the system failed, and this man was free and able to commit these barbaric acts.

“The extent of the systemic breakdown in this case is sickening. The process, how criminal suspects unlawfully in the country are processed is a failure. The policies are terribly ineffective. In the current system, justice is delayed by bureaucracy or obstructed in some cases amazingly by design.

“Congress needs to act now. The president needs to act now. The Department of Homeland Security needs to act now. Local governments and law enforcement agencies need to act now. The Senate’s attempt to do just that has been stymied, but we must not give up on an effort to secure our nation and protect Americans from harm…Continuing the status quo means empowering career offenders, incentivizing law-evading behavior…impeding the prosecution of crime and releasing dangerous and habitually unlawful individuals who have no place in our communities.

“The victims of crime like last week’s horrors in Kansas City have been failed by their communities and by their political leaders…The loss of life is a terrible thing, and probably in this circumstance had no reason to happen, would not have happened if the jobs had been done. Kansans, Kansas families, Americans, American families deserve much, much better. These victims and their families, we honor them today. We offer our condolences and provide our sympathies, but these individuals and their families deserved better.”

A link to Moran’s speech on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saWPcpvwFcA&feature=youtu.be

Two KCK persons injured in crash

Two injured persons were from Kansas City, Kan., in a four-vehicle crash on I-35 at 67th Street on March 14 in Johnson County.

The crash was at 3:55 p.m. Monday, and all vehicles were southbound on I-35 at the time of the crash, according to the trooper’s report.

Three vehicles were stopped in traffic when a Honda Accord braked but was unable to stop, hitting a Mitsubishi Outlander from behind. Then two other vehicles were struck, a Chrysler and Honda Odyssey.

The driver of the Honda Accord, a 22-year-old man from Lawrence, Kan., was not injured, according to the report.

The driver of the Chrysler, a 40-year-old woman from Belleville, Kan., was injured and taken to a hospital, the report stated.

The driver of the Honda Odyssey, a 34-year-old Kansas City, Kan., woman, was not injured. A 58-year-old Kansas City, Kan., woman in the Odyssey was injured and taken to a hospital, the report stated. Also reported injured was a 15-year-old Kansas City, Kan., girl in the Odyssey.

Legislators want to postpone waiver integration

Subcommittee recommends putting off plan until January 2018 because of lack of details

by KHI News Service staff

Legislative support is growing for a further delay of a plan to combine Medicaid waiver services — part of a recent pattern of the Republican lawmakers pushing back against Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration.

A subcommittee of four members of the House Health and Human Services Committee recommended last week that the administration postpone the waiver integration one year to Jan. 1, 2018.

“When the administration brought this to us, we did not see enough data that it was going to be done in a way that would meet the needs of our most vulnerable citizens,” said the subcommittee chairman, Rep. Willie Dove, a Republican from Bonner Springs.

The subcommittee’s recommendation is available for the full House health committee to act on. The committee also may consider House Bill 2682, which would require legislative approval before the administration combines the waivers. The committee had scheduled debate and a possible vote on that bill Monday, but it was pulled from the calendar.

Dove’s subcommittee held two hearings on the integration plan. First the panel heard from a dozen disability advocates who said the state was moving too fast on the high-stakes plan.

At the second hearing state officials from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment made their case for the Jan. 1, 2017 implementation date, which had already been pushed back from July 1, 2016.

Rep. Les Osterman, a Republican from Wichita on the subcommittee, said the state didn’t provide enough details about how the waiver integration plan would actually work.

“We didn’t get the answers we wanted,” Osterman said. “They didn’t show us any procedure manuals. They showed us no plan. We asked the question of KDHE and they didn’t give us any plans whatsoever.”

The subcommittee also wants to see what Dove called “doorstop” points along the way, where state officials could stop and assess the transition and make adjustments if necessary.

Disability rights advocates said they were impressed with the subcommittee’s work.

Tom Laing, executive director of Interhab, a non-profit that serves Kansans with developmental disabilities, said the group commissioned by House Health and Human Services Committee chairman Rep. Dan Hawkins was thorough.

“Hawkins deserves credit for naming the subcommittee and the subcommittee deserves credit for the work they’ve done,” Laing said.

Mike Oxford, executive director of the Topeka Independent Living Center, which serves Kansans with physical disabilities, said he initially thought the subcommittee hearings would just be a formality for a Legislature that has generally been receptive to Brownback administration proposals.

But Oxford said Dove, Osterman and the other two members — Rep. Jim Kelly, a Republican from Independence, and Rep. Jim Ward, a Democrat from Wichita — asked the right questions.

The subcommittee’s skepticism of the administration’s assurances fit a larger pattern of Republican House and Senate members, who are all up for reelection in November, increasingly resisting the governor’s office.

They’ve pushed back on Brownback’s plan to use special tax incentives to lure the American Royal across the Missouri border, ripped an administration deal to finance a new power plant, sought to pre-empt any administration attempts to unilaterally privatize state hospitals and even introduced bills to roll back Brownback’s signature income tax exemption for businesses.

Osterman said he believes the administration has enacted too many big changes without sufficient vetting — including the move to privatized, managed care Medicaid under KanCare.

“I saw what happened with KanCare,” Osterman said. “It wasn’t going to happen again. Not on my watch.”

KHI reporter Megan Hart contributed to this story.

The nonprofit KHI News Service is an editorially independent initiative of the Kansas Health Institute and a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor reporting collaboration. All stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to KHI.org when a story is reposted online.

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